Conclusion.

Overall the performance the investigation team gave was poor and there where many mistakes due to the lack of communication and security of evidence which ultimately allowed OJ to be acquitted from the investigation. There were many detrimental errors which occurred due to evidence not being secured or even locked into the chain of custody. By the evidence not being logged into the chain of custody there was no audit trial of the evidence. Some of the mistakes made by the team allowed the defence to have a strong, solid argument. Due to this it lead to a long trial concluding in OJ being acquitted.

The blood evidence taken from OJ is a key piece of evidence and vital error that officers and the investigation team made. Due to the fact this blood was never documented or entered into the chain of custody until hours after being taken it allowed for a memorable argument to occur between the defence and the prosecution. This argument surrounded the question of planted evidence, as this biological evidence was “missing” for hours and the officer visited the crime scene with it, it allowed the defence to argue Vannatter planted the blood evidence within the bronco and crime scene. This evidence was a solid argument that the prosecution tried to argue within court as the analysation of the blood concluded in that it would belong to 1 in 40 billion people, this statement was strong however, due to the lack of security the defence team argued the evidence out of court. The blood evidence which was taken from the crime scene was also packaged in an incorrect manner. Upon the collection of blood samples, SOCO’s took a number of blood swabs however all were not entered into the chain of custody. These blood samples should have been placed into the chain of custody however were not, placed into the back of a van and left there for around a day. As this investigation was within Los Angeles the weather was hot and with biological evidence placed within a hot van the evidence would have possibly decomposed causing the evidence to be less reliable within a court of law. Within the collection of the evidence SOCO’s also failed to wear PPE, this suggests that contamination could have possible occurred by transferring their own DNA upon to the evidence. These reasons where argued within court by the defence team suggesting that the forensic collection and police work was “sloppy” and due to the fact evidence could have been contaminated it should not be used within the investigation.

The miscommunication between officers, detectives and SOCO’s led to mass amounts of evidence not being entered into the chain of custody, not packaged and labelled correctly and finally not collecting vital pieces of evidence. This is apparent within the miscommunication between Detective Fuhrman and Detective Vannatter surrounding the bloody fingerprint. Due to the fact Fuhrman did not tell him and just expected him to read his notes the vital piece of evidence was missed, which could have been the evidence which links OJ’s presence within the crime scene and conclusively state Simpson as the suspect.

If the team communicated in the correct manner and followed protocol efficiently the court trial would have concluded differently. However as to the many mistakes made upon the investigation of the double murders the defence produced a strong argument for any mistake that was raised. Due to the high profile that OJ Simpson had at the time because of his career, the prosecution team and the police officers felt a high sense of pressure in order to prosecute him, due to this pressure the team failed to produce solid arguments within court based upon the evidence they had obtained as certain rules and regulations where not followed. Within the arguments produced by the defence team surrounding ultimately all evidence which was risen, the prosecution did not have an accurate argument against the defence, due to the fact the defence where right almost all of the time. If this pressure was not there within this investigation it is likely that the prosecution, court trial and the investigation would have been much smoother and may have concluded in a different ruling by the jury.

The prosecution based their arguments based upon supportive evidence this evidence all pointed to OJ Simpson as the suspect within the double murder enquiry however due to the way the evidence was collected almost all of it was not admissible within the courts. The investigation concluded in a mass amount of evidence which was highly supportive in the prosecution’s arguments. However the jury finally acquitted Simpson of the double murders based upon numerous factors. The first was the high amount of contamination, lack of professionalism, the knowledge that the team lacked surrounding different pieces of evidence, the miscommunication between the investigation team and finally the procedures and protocol that the team failed to follow accurately. At the time of the murders racism was very high and the LAPD was also known for racism. Mark Fuhrman was known for racist remarks, and due to the fact he was working in this murder enquiry the defence found any statement or racist remark he had ever said. Due to the fact the jury was predominately African American these statements effected them emotionally and its suggested the jury came to Simpson’s acquittal by voting emotionally. As Fuhrman was known for the racism it also allowed the defence to raise the question of planted or manipulated evidence. Within the investigation Mike Furhman was on OJ Simpson's premises to question him about a certain piece of evidence, however when there was no answer Furhman decided to climb over the back wall of OJ's premises. This action by Mike Furhman was done illegally without no warrant. Within the action that he took he found that there was blood smeared across OJ's back wall and the other bloody glove was found. However due to this being an illegal search without any warrant this evidence cannot be used within a court room. Mike Furhman was known to have a bad reputation when involved with the African American ethnicity as he was caught being racist upon camera, Furhman was also to have been accused of having Nazi propaganda upon his desk, he was then questioned within court which he lied about. The second time he took to the stand and questioned about it again he took his 5th amendment right to decline to answer any question. This also caused speculation on whether Furhman was trying to make OJ look guilty by planting evidence. This was another factor which supports why the jury voted that OJ Simpson should have been aquitted of all charges. 

However certain pieces of evidence were secured within the audit trail by the SOCO’s however upon collection of certain items the detectives lacked within carrying out protocols. Detective Fuhrman and Vannatter allowed for many mistakes to be made which eventually allowed the defence to argue OJ out of certain scenarios. Both of these detectives where seen as valuable within the case however once evaluated their mistakes we can state that if they were not involved in the case the investigation may have led to a smoother prosecution and court trial. We can state this because of the many mistakes they made throughout allowing the defence to question their loyalty to their job suggesting they planted evidence to point OJ Simpson as the suspect. Certain detectives within the crime scene allowed for SOCO’s to not follow standard protocol due to the fact they wanted the scene processed and closed off quickly. This led to evidence not being secured meaning evidence went missing, some evidence not collected and the evidence not being collected properly.  

Overall the investigation into the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman was sloppy and not as accurate as it should have been. From the beginning of the investigation detrimental errors occurred, these errors consisted of:

• ·         Not cordoning of the scene correctly.
• ·         Miscommunication between detectives.
• ·         Detectives rushing SOCO’s, this led to cross contamination, destruction of evidence and missing key evidence.
• ·         An unsecure audit trail
• ·         PPE not worn
• ·         No log in sheet signed

Some of these errors are only minimal however it allowed the defence to create arguments in which the prosecution could not justify. If the team throughout the whole investigation followed the procedures and protocol in an efficient and correct manner the prosecution of Simpson may have concluded in a different way. Simpson’s defence team was impeccable throughout the court trial and allowed the jury to vote emotionally and allowed key evidence to not be used within the investigation. This ultimately led to OJ Simpson being acquitted of all charges. As stated previously Mark Fuhrman and Philip Vannatter should not have been on this investigation. The jury should have not been based upon race and evidence should have been collected correctly, if these factors had of occurred within the court trail and investigation, the prosecution would have had better arguments and could have ultimately prosecuted OJ Simpson for the double murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.